Science and Technology Are Unlocking the Future of Economy, Religion and Power — Why are governments hindering progress instead of helping?

Phytoremediation is the use of certain plants to remove toxins from the air, soil and water by storing them (along with carbon) in a form that can easily be sequestered and safely stored for the half-life of practically anything.

This technique was used with great success at Chernobyl and is presently turning ears here in the United States, thanks to a rejuvenated battle over the legality of cannabis/hemp (legally, and scientifically, the same plant). Not to mention the nuclear waste disaster unfolding in Washington state, where it’s oddly legal to smoke the psychoactive herb; but, not yet legal to use the industrial cousin to clean up something that would otherwise cost a fortune to deal with.

Absolutely nothing in our federal government’s current stance regarding cannabis/hemp is even remotely tenable at this point. “Untenable” is how no less than two popular, peer-reviewed U.S. scientific journals described our federal government’s current enforcement of marijuana laws. Many months before a panel of judges somehow concluded that no evidence of the safety or efficacy of this plant exists to contradict it’s position as a “schedule I narcotic.” Reportedly due to the legally arbitrary use of a particular type of FDA study as the sole bar for determining the medical value and relative safety of the substance in question. Because the Controlled Substances Act itself never states that any such unreachable bar exists in the first place.

To be very clear: this is purely a legal fiction created entirely out of imagination to fool people into thinking some valid reason exists for not allowing people to use this plant at their own free will for whatever purpose they see fit. Completely disregarding the simple fact that one major reason said FDA study hasn’t been conducted is because our government has a strict policy in place disallowing such tests to be conducted on any form of cannabis/hemp. These tests are also notoriously expensive and private companies have no vested interest in going through the lengthy process, in part, because the government already has a patent on certain properties of the herb which it uses to do absolutely nothing with but prevent others from patenting it themselves.

Perhaps the real fear is what might happen to our already disfunctional and brutally effective patent laws once they truly open the doors of what’s possible when people are allowed to patent plants based upon their unique properties (which, obviously, can be easily tweaked and engineered over the course of a relatively short amount of time). Monsanto is getting very rich using these laws, at the unconscionable expense of farmers in practically every country on the globe.

Monsanto’s negligence and short-sided greed has led to rapidly increasing awareness of their products’ deadly consequences, plus a number of lawsuits with very serious allegations and an impressive list of plaintiffs. It is quite clear to anybody with even a clue who’s watching this train wreck in progress that following Monsanto’s example is a very bad idea.

Industrial hemp, on the other hand, is widely documented to be the ideal candidate for use in phytoremediology all across the U.S. and most of the inhabited landmasses on earth. For reasons that include it’s remarkable growth rate and long roots, which allow the plant to thrive in most places even without irrigation and aerate the vital soil deep down for next year’s crop. These are also a few of the reasons it was often used as a rotation crop and seen by at least a few of our country’s founding fathers to be of utmost importance for this country’s great future.

Yet, this document is not intended as a history lesson or attempt to sell the reader on the virtues of hemp and cannabis(marijuana). This is, most directly, a discussion of our country’s struggling economy and “inconvenient” problems with our reliance on dirty, dwindling fossil fuels. It just so happens, thanks to hemp, we now have the opportunity to phase in a widely beneficial, totally sustainable, quickly scalable source of food, fuel, fiber and fun (a topic which I’ll address later).

Although the mainstream media hasn’t reported it yet (that I’m aware of), utilization of these technologies is already in the works here in Montana and other states. To give the reader an idea of how widespread these ideas have been in certain scientific circles for a long time, consider the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) says the following about phytoremediation:

When it comes to helping clean up soils contaminated with heavy and toxic metals, nature has ARS plant physiologist Leon V. Kochian to thank.

During 13 years of research at the U.S. Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory at Ithaca, New York, Kochian has become an authority on mechanisms used by certain plants to take up essential mineral nutrients and toxic heavy metals from soils. He has also characterized strategies some plants use to tolerate toxic soil environments.

Kochian is an international expert on plant responses to environmental stress, plant mineral nutrition, and use of plants to clean up or remediate soils contaminated with heavy metals and radioisotopes…

It’s not exactly clear based on the information I’ve seen released by the USDA that their scientists have used hemp in the ongoing phytoremediation experiments. However, one U.S.-based corporation in particular: X-Change Corporation, has recently been very busy revolutionizing the commercial utility of this technique using hemp’s remarkable properties. Here’s a tidbit of what Bloomberg Businessweek has to say about the company:

The X-Change Corporation has entered into a agreement with WOLASTOKWIK NeGoot-Gook, Maliseet Nation at Tobique to participate in the development and growth of a legal cannabis growing facility, clinical laboratory, manufacturing and production facility, and treatment center. The agreement allows for legal cannabis and hemp-based medical research and treatments with true global significance, as the operations under the agreement facilitate medical cannabis and hemp research, clinical trials, and treatments, among numerous other opportunities for the parties to the Agreement, for the first time in North America…

Beyond all of this, X-Change Corporation is now in the process of rolling out their first major line of hemp-based neutraceuticals in California. Nationwide distribution is promised to begin soon. Judging by the widely touted properties of hemp as a superfood, the introduction of these and competing products to our grocers’ shelves will improve individual health and promote the growth of new brain cells like nothing else available on the market. Thanks to abundant quantities of essential fatty acids (Omega 3, 6 and 9), which are also proving themselves key to maintaining optimum mental health for those with serious conditions including traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

What’s particularly fascinating about X-Change Corp. to me is the fact that it also appears to be the same company now heavily invested in the quickly expanding natural gas and oil industries across eastern Montana and North Dakota:

X-Change Corporation (OTCQB: XCHC.PK) announced today through its subsidiary Cress Oil, Inc., an independent exploration and production company based in Houston, Texas that its 65000 Bakken acreage play in Teton County Montana alongside Rosetta Resources Inc., Newfield Exploration Co., Anschutz Exploration Co. and a dozen smaller U.S. independents and Canadian junior oils have neighboring positions. The company is taking advantage of acreage positions across the state from the North Dakota-Montana Bakken play in the Williston Basin, all the way to the new Alberta Basin exploration. Teton County is seen as an analog to the existing Devonian shale oil production…

Another company based in Colorado, Dixie Elixirs, is also making history with their new line of hemp-based (fully legal throughout the U.S.) CBD-rich products that are proven to effectively treat various diseases and common ailments without compromising overall health. More companies, both private and public, are diligently working to bring lots of various products to market as quickly as possible in order to capitalize on the overwhelming demand for these safe, organic pharmaceutical replacements.

Meanwhile, lawmakers across the country are starting to be greeted by constituents who understand the vast potential we have to improve our environment and quality of life by re-integrating the cannabis plant into our society. Remarkably enough in its own right, this unusual situation has caused many lawmakers from both major parties to work together with groups representing concerned citizens towards developing reasonable legislation to “fix” our marijuana laws.

Some of these groups, including Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, advocate ending the failed drug war altogether in favor of a system that deals with all substance abuse as a health concern. This could, theoretically, reduce our prison population by half in a very short matter of time; saving tens of billions of dollars a year while providing more able workers for the booming cannabis-related industries. Unfortunately, prevailing opinions within the movement itself so far are erring on the side of ‘caution’ by promoting legislation and ideals that fall short of properly correcting our laws in response to pressure from the politicians who ironically refer to themselves as “conservatives”. Nowhere is this more true, or utterly depressing, than here in Montana where our once thriving medical cannabis industry has been dismantled at the hands of people who simply refuse to even consider anything but their own long-held beliefs on the matter.

We may call our government a democratic republic because it’s structure technically fits that description, but in practice what it seems to have evolved into is a legislative auction house where practically anything is legislatively possible if it comes with the right amenities. Cannabis provides a terrifying window into the underbelly of American politics today, which apparently hasn’t changed all that much since the days our government first declared the plant illegal. For a proud U.S. citizen such as myself, who grew up thinking this was the freest and greatest nation in the world, considering the implications of what is still preventing a drastic change in laws becomes unnerving almost immediately.

Meaning the definition of marijuana as a “gateway drug” is accurate, in the sense that it is helping science unlock the future of economy, religion and power. Perhaps the more apt question is how long will certain people in certain governments continue impeding the progress of what’s inevitably going to be a whole slew of booming industries and great benefit to our environment? After all, we’re presently making great headway towards developing reasonable legislation in dozens of states and in all factions of our federal government. Below are a couple of articles that give some impressive perspective to the sea-change now occurring in our nation’s drug war.

I was interested to learn of Congresswoman Kaptur’s interest in phytoremediation to clean-up impurities at sites throughout Ohio, and was pleased to report of the exceptional qualities of hemp for that. An interesting article on that subject states the following:

(Hemp.net) In 1998, Consolidated Growers and Processors (CGP), PHYTOTECH, and the Ukraine’s Institute of Bast Crops began what may be one of the most important projects in history – the planting of industrial hemp for the removal of contaminants in the soil near Chernobyl…

US prosecutors and other senior officials who spearheaded the war against drug cartels have quit their jobs to defend Colombian cocaine traffickers, saying their clients are not bad people and that United States drug policy is wrong…

note: this article comes from The Guardian, based in the United Kingdom; and while the reporter is stationed in Los Angeles, the American press still continues ignoring this fascinating and very promising development in the so-called debate over drug policy reform here in the states…

“We are in the midst of another industry spike although with this much volume across the board we are now entering a sustained growth curve for this sector of public companies,” says Bruce Perlowin, CEO of Hemp, Inc. “Within the past 3 weeks alone, there has been close to 3 billion shares traded amongst the industrial hemp and medical marijuana industry, roughly translating into almost $200 million.”

This indicates to the investment community that this industry is here to stay, and that they want in at the beginning of the next growth curve. Hemp, Inc., the industry leader that led the last growth curve back in 2009 with a 480% increase, is, again, leading the industry in 2013 as its CEO, Bruce Perlowin , predicted.

According to Perlowin, the last spike was only a precursor to what is happening now in an industry that is officially “unstoppable.”

What are your thoughts on all this commotion and upheaval finally happening in politics today? Will our lawmakers agree to dismantle the drug war before Obama and Holder concede that marijuana has medical value and prohibition’s been a massive failure anyway? Or, is this going to take a massive public embrace of our right to Jury Nullification and spark a civil war (of various sorts) to reclaim and defend our Constitutional Rights as Sovreign Citizens of these United States of America? For more information on the rights and moral obligations of jurors, please visit the Fully Informed Jury Association at www.fija.org.

Purpose

The FIJA mission is to educate Americans regarding their full powers as jurors, including their ability to rely on personal conscience, to judge the merit of the law and its application, and to nullify bad law, when necessary for justice, by finding for the defendant.

The Fully Informed Jury Association(FIJA)is a nonpartisan public policy research and education organization located in Helena, Montana. FIJA focuses on issues involving the role of the jury in our justice system and the preservation of the full function of the jury as the final arbiter in our courts of law. The FIJA mission is to inform all Americans about their rights, powers and responsibilities when serving as trial jurors. FIJA works to restore the political function of the jury as the final check and balance on our American system of government.

To assist supporters who press for a “fully informed jury,” FIJA has drafted the following model bill language suitable for passage into law or for amending a state constitution: http://fija.org/about/fijas-purpose/

Regarding the topic of fun I mentioned earlier, one example of the many lines of products already for sale through one of Hemp, Inc.’s subsidiaries is described in the above quoted article Investing in Hemp (Inc.) as follows:

..While educating consumers on the many uses of industrial hemp, Hemp, Inc., is also producing hemp-based products proven to increase the body’s overall health and performance. The company boasts HerbaGenix™ nutraceuticals; BasicHemp, their hemp protein shakes brand; and, custom-branded MJ Lover for Him and MJ Lover for Her and Re-Load’s hemp nutraceuticals which are derived from a blend of organic nutrients, herbs, and vitamins including hemp extract, and AFA blue-green algae which is known for its healthful effects…

Finally, the intertwined nature of cannabis with religion seems to this author more than apparent without bothering to quote ancient scripture or cite historical facts. Because, as this document has hopefully helped to demonstrate on at least a rudimentary level, the scientific documentation and unquestionable market realities of the present are bound to have remarkable benefits for our individual health and resulting spiritual contentment. If our government fails to acknowledge our basic human rights on this pressing issue soon, we may be seeing just how powerful science and technology have made the concerned citizen in unprecedented and likely unexpected ways.

Your comments and criticism are much appreciated. Please share these ideas with your friends if you find them worth entertaining and feel free to repost any or all of this document, with proper credit and a link (of course).